Talking to the World International Conference for the Interpreting Profession and Interpreter Education 10-11 September 2015
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Talking to the World International Conference for the Interpreting Profession and Interpreter Education 10-11 September 2015 The Relevance of Translation and Interpreting – Past, Present and Future Abstracts from Keynote Speeches Keynote speech 1 I see what you're saying: Visual information in simultaneous conference interpreting Kilian G. Seeber ICTs have the potential to shape and perhaps even revolutionize the way in which we communicate. Relatively recent technologies such as Skype (released in 2003), Facebook (released in 2004), and Twitter (released in 2006) are a case in point: inconceivable only a decade ago, they have turned into household names and conditioned the way in which we interact both socially and professionally. The same applies to the hardware supporting them, such as smart phones and tablet computers. It stands to reason that these technologies, that condition our communicative behaviour from an early age, will have a repercussion on the way in which new generations of interpreters react to an increasingly technologically enhanced workplace, including teleconference interpreting (TCI) and remote interpreting (RI). Already today professional interpreters are routinely confronted with a wide range of input channels as content at conferences is delivered using multimedia devices such as slide presentations, animated videos and video prompters. What is more, they use their own devices, such as laptop and tablet computers, in real time. Consequently, modern simultaneous interpreting can be viewed as a multi-modal information-processing task requiring the allocation of finite cognitive resources to different sub-tasks that interfere with each other to varying degrees. The effect of such multi-modal communicative environments on a cognitively demanding task such as simultaneous interpreting is still largely unknown. Crucially, much of the data gathered in experiments on teleconference and remote interpreting predates the introduction of the aforementioned ICTs, raising the issue of their demographic validity. In this interactive presentation I will focus on the visual component of communication, more specifically on the visual component of simultaneous conference interpreting. My overall objective will be to share with you experimental and survey data with the potential to inform and maybe debunk some rather persistent myths concerning the processing of visual information during comprehension and simultaneous interpreting. Keynote speech 2 Who is talking to whom? Raising public awareness of the role of translation and interpreting in and for society Christina Schaeffner There is no denying that international contacts in all spheres of life are increasing continuously. Globalisation requires interaction and exchange of ideas, not only in the fields of science and technology but also in the humanities and social sciences. As researchers in Translation Studies and professionals in the translation industry we are very much convinced of the importance of translation and interpreting in and for society. We are therefore often frustrated if we feel that society seems to have a rather narrow view of what translation is all about or if we feel that mass media only rarely report about translation and interpreting. This presentation will address this issue and reflect on how Translation and Interpreting Studies scholars can make their voices heard outside their own discipline, thus contributing to the development of what Koskinen (2010) calls Public Translation Studies. Keynote speech 3 Bridging the Language Divide Alexander Waibel As our world becomes increasingly interdependent and globalization brings people together more than ever, we quickly discover that it is no longer the "digital divide" that separates us, but the "language divide" and the cultural differences that come with it. Nearly everyone has a cell phone and *could* connect with everyone else on the planet, if only they shared a common language and a common understanding. Forcing uniformity (“everyone speaks English”), however, is neither realistic nor desirable, as we enjoy the beauty and individuality of each of our languages and cultural heritage. Can technology provide an answer? In this talk, I will present language technology solutions that offer us the best of both worlds: maintaining our cultural diversity while enabling the integration, communication and collaboration that our modern world has to offer. I will present cross-lingual computer Communication systems from our University labs, R&D Consortia and start-up ventures. More specifically, I will discuss and demonstrate: Pocket speech translators running on smartphones for tourists and medical doctors. The software app, Jibbigo, launched in 2009, was the world’s first commercially available speech translator running such programs all on a telephone Speech Translation tools devices deployed on iPads in Humanitarian and Government Missions Simultaneous interpretation systems that translate academic lectures and political speeches in real time (recently tested in the European Parliament) A cloud based Lecture Interpretation Service deployed at KIT for the benefit of foreign students studying at a German University Tools and Support Technology to facilitate and accelerate the work of human interpreters In the talk, I will review how the technology works and what levels of performance are now possible. Then we will be concerned with the delivery of such technology, so that language separation will truly fade naturally into the background. Finally, we will discuss ongoing research on the problems of portability and scaling, when we attempt to build cross-lingual communication tools for many languages and topics more effectively and inexpensively at acceptable cost. We will report results and experiences from the laboratory, from field trials and deployments. Keynote speech 4 Translation Expert (TranslationQ & RevisionQ): Automated translation process with real-time feedback & evaluation/ revision with PIE Winibert Segers, Hendrik Kockaert & Frieda Steurs This paper reports on an experiment working with a new evaluation technique for translator training. Organizing high level translation classes in a master in translation involves intensive assessment of the work delivered by the students. The evaluation has to be precise, professional, and at the same time allow for improvement and pedagogical feedback. In our master in translation at KU Leuven Campus Antwerp, we train translators in different language combinations (all with Dutch as mother tongue), and we offer different specialized translation classes, focusing a.o. on legal, medical, technical and literary translation. A lot of thought has been given over the years how to implement good and transparent evaluation systems. At the same time, a lot of research has been done on evaluation methods for professional translation work, both in companies and in the context of EU projects assessing legal translators; see:Qualetra, (JUST/2011/JPEN/AG/2975). One of the objectives of this project was the development of testing, evaluation & assessment procedures and materials for legal translators related to the specific working conditions of legal translation in criminal proceedings. Reliable and valid testing, assessment and evaluation materials and procedures is needed in order to develop EU-wide recommendations and best practices. See also Transcert (530940-LLP). This lead to the fine tuning of the PIE Method. PIE (Preselected Items Evaluation) has five stages: Preselection of items in the source text (before the test taking) Determination of correct and incorrect solutions of the preselected items Calculation of the scores of the candidates Calculation of the difficulty degree (p-value) and the discriminatory power (d-index) of the preselected items Calculation of the final scores of the candidates (This calculation is based on the preselected items with a good p-value and a good d-index.) The PIE method is a dichotomous, criterion-referenced and norm-referenced method, and is transparent. The PIE method can be used in different domains and both in educational and professional contexts. Translation teachers can select items based on the material treated in class. In professional contexts the selection of the items will be related to the required competencies of the translator The unique combination with a software tool that had already been developed for language learning (Edumatic®) allowed us to conduct an experiment where the PIE method was implemented in the educational software tool. Edumatic is a professional platform for online exercises, tests, assessments and exams. The Edumatic platform provides an advanced authoring tool to structure, create and add metadata to items. References: ANCKAERT, PH., J. EYCKMANS & W. SEGERS (2006) “Vertaalvaardigheid evalueren: een normgerelateerde benadering”, in n/f 6: 9-27. ANCKAERT, PH., J. EYCKMANS & W. SEGERS (2008) “Pour une évaluation normative de la compétence de traduction”, in ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics 155: 53-76. COLLOMBAT, I. (2009) “La didactique de l’erreur dans l’apprentissage de la traduction”, in The Journal of Specialised Translation 12: 37-54. EYCKMANS, J., PH. ANCKAERT & W. SEGERS (2009) “The perks of norm-referenced translation evaluation”, in Angelelli & Jacobson. (red.) Testing and assessment in translation and interpreting studies, Amsterdam: John Benjamins: 73-93. Keynote speech 5 Staying relevant? The past and future of interpreting Franz Pöchhacker